Specialists from Lomonosov Moscow State University have improved methods for calculating the trajectories of small satellites (nanosatellites, cubesats) in conditions of irregular updating of navigation data. This work was carried out by scientists and students of the ballistic center of the Faculty of Space Research at Moscow State University.
Researchers at the university faced the problem of irregular data updates on the trajectories of Russian satellites after the launch of the Space-Pi project satellites from the Vostochny Cosmodrome on November 5, 2024.
Due to saving the charge of on-board batteries, data on the position of satellites is sent to the control center only once every few days, which leads to a deterioration in the forecast of the movement of devices.
To solve this problem, MSU scientists have developed software that can significantly increase the battery life of satellites without receiving new data. This improved the accuracy of the forecast based on limited data, which in turn is important for planning energy consumption and further work of nanosatellite control centers.
The developed software is successfully used to calculate the trajectory of the Altair satellite, and the results of these calculations are now available on the faculty's publicly available resource.